


A New Beginning

by FuchsiaMae



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2019-08-20 02:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16546865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuchsiaMae/pseuds/FuchsiaMae
Summary: In another life, it was the morning she first heard the name Zachary Hale Comstock. In this life, it was just another morning.(Originally posted to Tumblr 05/24/13)





	A New Beginning

No Comstock. No Columbia. No contraption.

 _I told you it would end in tears_.

They stood on the hill above the water, just out of sight, watching the scene. As the girls winked out one by one, she took his hand. She never got to voice her  _I told you so_. There was time only for a final squeeze—and then R. Lutece winked out too.

* * *

Rosalind woke to soft morning sunlight streaming in through her window. In another life, it was the morning she first heard the name Zachary Hale Comstock. In this life, it was just another morning.

She sat up, and let her eyes roam about the garret room she rented. Her desk, covered in books and papers. Her blackboard, covered in chalked calculations. Yesterday’s clothes, sweat-stained, thrown carelessly over a chair—she’d been up at the lab observing her atom late into the night, and fatigue outweighed her natural tidiness when she’d come home a few short hours before. She’d clean up in here a bit before heading downstairs for a quick breakfast, and then it was off to the lab again. Just another morning.

With one weary stretch of her shoulders, she slid out of bed and crossed the room to take care of her clothes—when something caught her eye. She went to the desk for a better look. Peeking out from under her stack of notebooks was the corner of an envelope which she was sure had not been there before. Frowning, she eased it free. It was unmarked and unstamped. She had no memory of receiving it. Strange.

She opened it gingerly with her letter opener, and her fingers reached inside to remove two stiff slips of paper. The first—

Dizziness struck her. She flinched and squeezed her eyes shut against a sudden headache. Very strange. She wasn’t prone to them unless working to the point of exhaustion. But after a steadying breath she was able to get a look at the first paper.

It was a souvenir card. The message section on the back was blank, but its front was adorned with a black-and-white artist’s rendering of—of a city in the air. A  _floating_  city. She brought the card up to her nose, squinting—it was so lifelike she could hardly believe it was a drawing. It looked more like a printed photograph. Across the top, in ornate script, a header proclaimed,  _Columbia: Jewel of the Skies_.

Another wave of dizziness nearly knocked her off her feet. Columbia. A floating city. Just last night she’d been dreaming at the lab of the things her quantum technology could do. After all, if an atom could hang suspended in midair, why not an apple? Or an automobile? Or, indeed, why not a city? She felt lightheaded as her heart began to pound. Columbia.

But there was another paper still to see. Dropping the card from her shaking hands, she took a look at the second—

—And let out a groan as a piercing migraine lanced through her head. Spots danced before her eyes as she stumbled for the chair. Sinking into it, she took steady breaths through the worst of the dizziness and pain, almost not caring. She would see this second paper. She had to.

Nausea threatened to overwhelm her as she looked again, but this time she kept her eyes stubbornly fixed. It was another image—another photograph. Of herself. Herself in a grand laboratory, arms folded as if she owned the place, and beside her—

Beside her was a man.

Freckled cheeks and a stern expression. A strong jaw and a pointed nose. Even in monochrome she could tell he had light eyes and ginger hair, shaded the same as her own beside him. They even wore matching clothes.

She barely felt the nosebleed as it trickled down her lip. He looked like her father, her mother. He looked like  _her_.

And her mind returned to those childhood dreams, of the girl who was and was not herself—a living reflection, in the flesh—and she knew who this man was.

Her physiology won at last, and she fainted dead away.

When she woke again—perhaps minutes later, perhaps an hour—her nightdress was stained at the collar with her own blood. But it hadn’t been a dream. The souvenir card was there on the desk, the photograph still clutched in her hand. Across the bottom, in what was unmistakably her own hand, was written:

 _Find him. Follow the light_.

Her belly clenched with unstoppable certainty. She wasn’t one to follow intuition, but this time was different. This time she had to trust it. She had to.

Find him.


End file.
